Ukiah residents still going easy on water

Last weekend delivered 100-degree-plus heat as promised, but Ukiah residents did not increase their usage of water as much as city officials expected.

"I was very impressed -- the message is getting out there," said Public Works Director Tim Eriksen, guessing that many people have their lawn sprinklers turned off.

At the Ukiah City Council's last meeting June 4, Eriksen told the council that residents were using 3.1 million gallons a day, with 1 million of those gallons coming out of the Russian River.

"Our usual summer load is 6 million gallons a day," he said. "We haven't hit the summertime yet, but we are lower than we usually are at this time."

However, Eriksen said the real test of conservation would be this past weekend, because spikes in temperature cause spikes in water use.

"How we get through that hot weekend could shape what we have to do as far as the coming year," he said. "That will tell us how much people are irrigating and how much they are rationing, and will give us very good data points to see if we need to go to voluntary plus,' or Phase 2 restrictions in water use.

On Wednesday, Eriksen said this past weekend residents had only increased their usage to 3.7 million gallons a day, while he was expecting more like 4.5 million.

"That was pretty significant, compared to what I was imagining," he said, adding that the city still has time to decide what it needs to do as far as ramping up conservation efforts.

"I expect I'll be coming to the council with those recommendations at the July 16 meeting," he said.

Justine Frederiksen can be reached at udjjf@ukiahdj.com, on Twitter @JustFrederiksen or at 380-1141